Recent Questions

Atithi Devo Bhavah is a Sanskrit verse which simply means – consider the guest as god. This value-laden statement is drawn from an ancient scripture Hindu religion which has always been the ethos of Indian culture.

Once a guest is assumed to be God-like, then comes the process he should be treated. As the God is treated with reverence and respect and there are proper ways to show that respect, those ways are called rituals. Similarly, the guest should also be shown the respect through the same rituals. In Hinduism, these rituals comprise of five-steps which is known as Panchopchara Puja. These five rituals from the worship similarly become the five “code of conduct” to be followed while receiving guests which are as follows:

Fragrance/Incence (Dhupa) - The rooms must have a pleasant fragrance while welcoming any guest because a good fragrance will make guest in good mood.

Earthen Lamp (Dipa) – Lighted earthen lamp looks beautiful, fire is considered pious and also a source of light which disperses light so that everything between guest and the host is clearly visible.

Eatables (Naivedya) - Fruits and milk-made sweets were given to guests for refreshments.

Rice (Akshata) – Tilak is considered not only a symbol of warm wishes but also an expectation of well-being of the person on whom it is applied. Made from vermilion paste, tilak is put on the forehead and rice grains are placed on tilak. This is the most respectable form of welcome in Indian Hindu families.

Flower Offering (Pushpa) - A flower not only symbolizes freshness and but is also a gesture of good will. It symbolizes the sweet and enduring memories of the visit between the host and the guest that stay with them for several days.

This Indian tradition of hospitality is known the world over for its warmth and affection. This exactly is the reason why millions of tourists every year love to come to India. Once in India, it would be recommendable to stay in Indian homes if there is opportunity because it is the place where the real flavor of Indian hospitality could be experienced. But even if such opportunity is not there, there are no reasons to feel sad as Indian hotels provide similar warm hospitality following the rich Indian tradition of welcoming their guests with respect and care.

Indian food and cuisines must be enjoyed to its fullest once in India. The curries and spices used in preparation of the food are unique to India only. Indian sweets, delicacies, and aroma of the spices used in preparation of the Indian food are really mouth-watering.

Indian people are considerate and affectionate towards the guests. They are generally friendly, of helping attitude and hospitable. They give due care to provide their guests with warm hospitality and comfort. It is considered bad in India if any guest goes with any kind of hard feeling and so they never let a guest go away unhappy from their home. The tourists coming to receive everything required to make stay pleasant and memorable right from the splendid tourists spot to the rich local cuisines to the spiritual upliftment they achieve to the warm hospitality given by the Indians. Due to these reasons, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the tourists visiting India want to come back to India again & again.

Islam started in the Arab Peninsula, thus the first Muslims were originally ethnically Arabs. The religion of the Arabs at the time of the revelation of Islam was that of paganism and not of Hinduism. The origin of Islam and the Muslims had nothing to do with Hinduism, either as a religion or ethnicity.

The fact that Islam started between Arabs does not alter its universal message. The Quran stresses in a number of verses this global nature of the Islamic message. You may refer to the following verses in the Quran: "90:6" "1:25" "87:38" "28:34" .

confusion about the relationship between Islam and Hinduism is that when the Indian Peninsula was opened to Islam in the tenth century at the hands of the great Muslim conquers Spaktakin and His son Mahmoud of Ghuznah, most people converted to it. It is because this part of the world is heavily populated, a majority of Muslims now belong to this part of the world, which is the Indian Peninsula.

Trade relations have existed between Arabia and the Indian subcontinent since ancient times. Even in the pre-Islamic era, Arab traders used to visit the Malabar region, which linked them with the ports of South East Asia. Newly Islamised Arabs were Islam's first contact with India. The historians Elliot and Dowson say in their book The History of India as told by its own Historians, the first ship bearing Muslim travellers was seen on the Indian coast as early as 630 AD. H.G. Rawlinson, in his book: Ancient and Medieval History of India claims the first Arab Muslims settled on the Indian coast in the last part of the 7th century AD. Shaykh Zainuddin Makhdum's "Tuhfat al-Mujahidin" is also a reliable work. This fact is corroborated, by J. Sturrock in his South Kanara and Madras Districts Manuals, and also by Haridas Bhattacharya in Cultural Heritage of India Vol. IV. It was with the advent of Islam that the Arabs became a prominent cultural force in the world. The Arab merchants and traders became the carriers of the new religion and they propagated it wherever they went.

In Malabar, the Mappilas may have been the first community to convert to Islam as they were more closely connected with the Arabs than others. Intensive missionary activities were carried out along the coast and many natives also embraced Islam. These new converts were now added to the Mappila community. Thus among the Mappilas, we find, both the descendants of the Arabs through local women and the converts from among the local people.

India is the largest democratic country in the world. Democracy is defined as a government of the people, by the people and for the people. It is considered the finest form of government in which every individual participates consciously and in which the people remain the sovereign power determining their destiny. So, in democracy the people are the ultimate source of power and its success and failure depend on their wisdom, consciousness and vigilance.

It is not possible for all the people in a big country like India to participate in the government. This is why they are required to exercise their franchise and elect their representatives at regular intervals. These representatives from the parliament legislate and form responsible government.

India became free only in 1947 after many years of colonial rule. In the following years India had her constitution that declared India as a democratic federal republic. The first democratic election on the basis of universal adult franchise was held in 1952. But during that election the people of India did not really have the necessary consciousness to understand democracy. They did not have the education to choose between good and evil. More than eighty percent of these people were victims of age-old poverty, ignorance and superstitions. Many of them did not even understand the difference between the British and the new rulers. So, election for these Indian people was not a democratic process, it was like festival. Even to-day, after so many years, the people in India are not very much different, for many of them are illiterates and poverty too is still there with all its sickening and demoralizing effects. This is why Indian democracy has failed so far to bring about the desired changes and to attain the goal of regeneration.

Around 1.2 billion people live in India, and everyone over the age of 18 has the right to vote. That makes it the world's biggest democracy.

Teenager Tushar takes us on a tour around the city of Delhi. He shows us the upmarket area of town, and he explains how India's economy is booming, before travelling to the slums to see how the city’s poor live.

More than 450 million Indians live on less than £1 a day. But everyone, rich or poor, has the right to vote.